Beneath a Shattered Sky
by Digital Jace
Summary: She hated how everything Lexa said was never explained, cryptic and mysterious. She hated her stupid sun kissed skin and her stupid green eyes and her stupid soft lips. She hated her. She hated Lexa so much she could hardly stand it. She hated Lexa with such a loathing her voice nearly trembled as words "I hate you." spilled out from her lips. "I know."
1. Here We Stand

The night was quiet and peaceful. It was a veil of darkness blanketing over a world whose beauty was now gone, instead becoming a consistent reminder of the pain of loss. Darkness eased Clarke; if only just a little. With a long twig, Clarke poked at the last embers of the fire. They were nearly extinguished now, providing no real light source other than to announce its existence. Something for Clarke to focus on and nothing more.

Rolling the embers over, they cackled and sparked scarcely before dimming in weakness. Soon, Clarke would have no fire to distract her, and sleep – as usual – was not an easily achieved notion. Her near insomniac state was driven by the guilt of her decisions on the ground, and that's why she blamed the ground the most. The ground was everything she dreamed of growing up on the ark, and now those dreams haunted her to no end.

After sacrificing everything for the sake of an alliance – killing Finn, leaving over 200 people to die from a missile attack, eradicating an entire underground civilization – Clarke had reached her limit. She thought she could live with the weight if her people and the grounders could work together to get everyone out alive. Killing the people inside the mountain...she didn't prepare to have to live with the guilt of their death.

They were not there to kill the innocent. That wasn't the plan.

Whatever it was she had become in that moment was tearing her apart.

She couldn't go back into camp. The only thing she could do was leave, so not to succumb to weight she bared for the sake of others. And now, here she was in the middle of the woods with a handgun with three rounds left, no tent, and most importantly the grounder commander resting under a tree behind her.

Lexa had come to her nearly a week ago, in spite of Clarke's disapproval. However, there was no telling the commander what to do. If Lexa decided to stalk Clarke, no one was going to tell her otherwise.

For the most part Lexa had been quietly, albeit openly, following Clarke. After the blonde spacer refused to speak to the commander when she refused to leave her alone, the other woman took to standing exactly one dozen paces behind her at all times. Occasionally, Lexa would would attempt to make grounder style small talk, but Lexa only really knew how to speak about one thing: survival.

While this annoyed Clarke to no end after everything that happened between her people and the grounders, a small part of her was glad that the Commander was happy she was alive. Not to mention that after eight days of self elicited solitude, even hearing "Those are poisonous, Clarke." while gathering food for her dinner was a comforting gesture.

As the night progressed Clarke turned her tired eyes to Lexa: propped against a tree exactly twelve paces behind Clarke. She couldn't see anything more than her silhouette from here, and she wondered if Lexa was asleep. It was unlikely, she figured. With the way the grounder commander acted around her, she was almost certain that she was being watched. Guarded, even.

"The night is meant to be your ally, Clarke." Clarke's eyes squinted. Staring into the blackness, she watched as the Commander shifted. Her voice was soft yet commanding, almost with a hint of warmth. Warmth that Clarke had learned during their war was only meant for her. "Don't let it become your enemy."

Clarke clicked her tongue in frustration and her rolled her gaze back towards the embers of her former fire. She always had to say her name when she spoke. Always ensuring that her words were directed towards someone with a sense of purpose. Always making sure that Clarke knew she was thinking about her. "Oh, the earth's rotation around the sun can betray me now. Perfect." Clarke spat back sarcastically.

She wasn't sure why she was using sarcasm, exactly. She knew well that grounders never spoke unless their words had purpose. However, even if her words were sarcastic the tone was enough to get her point across with the commander, whose prolonged silence was proof enough that her words had cut her. Deep.

From behind her, she heard the commander rise to her feet, and close the distance, three, four, five, six paces. This was the closest Lexa had gotten to Clarke all week. A lump formed in her throat that she struggled to choke down, now knowing that the Commander's patience for her behavior had dwindled exponentially. "You must sleep, Clarke." The commander paused, took two more steps forward. "Or you will die in this forest."

Clarke turned her head to face the commander, and under the pale light of the moon she could see Lexa wasn't wearing her armor. She could also see that her war paint was missing, and the shadows cast upon her face highlighted the dark circles under her eyes. Circles that proved that Lexa slept less than Clarke. Hypocritical, of course, but that meant something entirely different to Clarke. It was proof that Lexa fell asleep after Clarke and awoke at first light, before her. The blonde then rose to her feet to even herself with the commander. "I can take care of myself."

The warrior's poised face tilted up, her eyes cast downward upon Clarke. It was a tactic Lexa used to promote her superiority over others subconsciously. Somehow, it was different for Clarke however. Lexa looked at her more equally than the other grounders and sky people. This tactic, it almost seemed like a persuasion move. A way to get Clarke to heed her advice as someone more experienced, rather than intimidate her into listening from her position as Commander alone. "You know nothing of these lands. Or how to survive in them alone."

"I'll manage." Came a swift response, her words sharp and short.

The commander stared back at her, gaze locked onto Clarke's blazing eyes, so blue and strong. There was a moment of pause, neither moving, neither speaking before the commander let her eyes fall. Clarke watched curiously, as Lexa begun to unfasten the leather belt that held the scabbard of her blade to her side. The commander took the large sword, sheath and all and then thrust it into the ground at Clarke's feet.

Clarke's eyes followed the sword, and then back up to Lexa, who was now throwing every hidden blade or weapon she had into the ground around them. After removing more weapons than Clarke thought possible for her to have on her person at the time, Lexa placed her hands behind her back and with a low raspy whisper she clarified, "Show me."

The spacer looked down at the sword again. The force in which the commander and thrown it caused the blade to eject itself from the scabbard enough for Clarke to see a few inches of glimmering metal under the moonlight. She had never held a sword before, and now she wondered if she was even capable of holding one. The dent it made into the soft earth was enough for Clarke to question the difference between her upper body strength, and the Commanders. Her lips parted, but no words came. Her thoughts couldn't form into words when all she could do was stare into the gleam of the commander's blade.

Finally, Clarke looked back up at grounder commander. She hadn't moved at all since Clarke's eyes last left her. She still stood poised and controlled, waiting for Clarke to respond. Waiting for Clarke to act. Finally, Clarke asked, "You want to fight me unarmed?"

Lexa nodded.

"And you want me to you your sword against you." This time Clarke spoke with a matter-of-fact tone, no hint of question in her reiteration of whatever it was the commander was doing.

"I will take it back when you are done with it." She clarified vaguely, and Clarke hated that.

She hated how everything Lexa said was never explained, cryptic and mysterious. She hated her stupid sun kissed skin and her stupid green eyes and her stupid soft lips. She hated her. She hated Lexa so much she could hardly stand it. She hated Lexa with such a loathing her voice nearly trembled as words "I hate you." spilled out from her lips.

"I know."

Overrun with fury, Clarke clenched her jaw grabbed the sword from the ground and removed it from it's protective casing.

Blood for blood.


	2. Wiped Out!

The moon illuminated softly through the tree leaves, painting the forest gently in laps of dark blues and blacks. Under the distant illumination of the stars a weapon – and a challenge – lay between the two war commanders. Clarke's eyes flickered between the sword and the inexplicably stoic grounder, whose challenge remain shrouded by the darkness and Lexa's inability (or more likely her flat out refusal) to elaborate.

But Clarke had made up her mind, and she was not going to back down from Lexa.

Clarke had expected there to be weight behind the sharpened steel, but actually lifting one off the ground was more of a challenge than she expected. No one ever bothered to mention the immense upper body strength needed to properly use a sword before, and Clarke was quickly hit with the realization of the intensity of Octavia's training as Indra's second. Octavia made it look easy; then again, Octavia was a warrior.

Still, she was determined to prove herself to Lexa once and for and, and rid herself of her uninvited companion. Clarke managed to hoist the weapon up, holding it tightly with her left hand in front of her right and her knees slightly bent in order to better stabilize the additional weight protruding outward into the night. She was thankful for the darkness, hiding the tremors of weakness as her arms begged her to drop the weapon in favor for one she was much more familiar with.

She had nothing to prove to Lexa, but she felt more strongly than ever before that she did. Behind her back, her gun was tucked away. One bullet was all it would take if someone tried to challenge her, and it wasn't as if she had never killed anyone before. Even the commander knew that she had. So many in fact that her fear wasn't in killing itself, but in how easy it had become to her. And yet, here she stood with the commander's sword in her hands, ready to strike back against the person who had so brutally betrayed her.

Fear, however, is not as strong as rage, and Clarke couldn't take Lexa looking at her any longer. The commander remained still and silent, eyes solemn and watchful, waiting patiently in anticipation for Clarke's final decision in this particular challenge.

'Don't you have some grounders to follow around', she thought with a grimace.

Yet, the Commander was here rather than the capitol. She was here rather than with her people that she had so easily abandoned Clarke to protect. She was here dogging Clarke every step of the way in spite of that and the spacer felt her rage seeping out of her more and more each day.

She squeezed her hands around the hilt of Lexa's sword as tightly as she could muster and pushed to close the distance. She came racing at Lexa with weapon in hand, swinging hard and fast. She knew nothing about how to fight with a sword, but it was quite a few feet long, and could easily hack and slash it's way through the commander if she could just get close enough. Or at least prove to the warrior that she could in fact take care of herself.

More than that, she wanted Lexa to know exactly what she was capable of. She wanted Lexa to feel the pain she felt, but the grounder was well trained and took but a single step to the side to avoid contact with the blade.

Dragging the sword upwards, Clarke tore at the earth the weapon had collided with, sending loose chunks upwards and into the fight as she tried to slash at the Commander again. Lexa merely leaned backwards, avoiding the fell swoop yet again.

"You need to focus," the commander noted quietly, her voice rough and low. She reached out and rested a hand on Clarke's shoulder in attempt to ease the spacer but from the closeness of their encounter, Lexa could see Clarke with more clarity than ever before. Her blue eyes – of which the commander could compare only to the sky she fell from on a clear summer afternoon – burned with rage. They were the eyes of her people, sworn to the pursuit of justice. A justice the sky people saw only as unnecessary vengeance.

"You must sleep. Clear your mind," the warrior urged again after Clarke threw her shoulder back in disgust.

Clarke's eyes narrowed at the command. "No," came a stubborn challenge.

Lexa nodded slowly, understanding things were not going to deescalate simply because it was the logical thing to do. The commander reached out, placing a hand over Clarke's. They were soft, yet firm and calloused from years of battle and demented survival tactics. The rage Clarke felt wavered at the touch, as did her grip, and the commander noticed. As Lexa's hand snaked around to take back her weapon however, Clarke snapped back.

Pulling away viciously, the sword in her hands tore through the air and forced a separation between the two women. Lexa moved out of the way, around the backside of Clarke, and with her right fist tucked tightly in the grip of her left hand she drove her elbow into Clarke's exposed right side.

Clarke collapsed, yelping in pain as the commander pulled her sword from the distracted woman's grasp and placed the cool metal at the nape of the sky person's neck. "Do you feel better now, Clarke?" She asked as the younger woman's eyes rose from the sword at her neck to Lexa's own. Her breath was staggered and she rose to her feet slowly, the blade never leaving her neck and her eyes never leaving the commander's.

"No," she finally admitted, wrapping her arms around her side in a defeated slump.

The brunette warrior dropped her arm, and turned to retrieve the scabbard from the ground while the Sky healer tended to her pained side. She retrieved every piece of weaponry she had earlier discarded, keeping the blonde within the bounds of her peripherals as she silently tended to her task. She watched as Clarke glared and fumed at every action Lexa took. She also watched as Clarke shivered unconsciously as the breeze picked up from the east.

The commander slipped away from the small clearing and grabbed a long dead fallen branch that she had spotted a few hours earlier and then cast it atop the dying embers. "Sit," the commander instructed as she knelt down to tend to the fire. Begrudgingly, Clarke fumbled over closer to the growing flames. Through the glowing light, Clarke watched Lexa handed something towards her with a second command, "Eat."

Clarke looked down at the strip of dried meat, unsure of where it had even come from. Over the past week, Clarke had never seen Lexa eat. Clarke had never offered her anything she had, and every time Clarke looked back at the commander she was one dozen steps behind with her arms tucked behind her back. Lexa was always looking at her, not the food in her hands or the fire she sat by.

Clarke kept looking at the food. She looked at it until Lexa finally retracted the food and out it away in the same swift and almost secretive location.

With Clarke's silence a bitter answer to the commanders attempts at kindness, the two sat in thick, pungent nothingness until the Commander broke the silence for a second time. "You killed the Mountain Men," the commander noted upon quietly. Clarke wanted nothing more than to sit and stare at the flames until there was nothing left but ash, to not think about what she had done. Instead she was swallowing stones and forcing herself to nod. "You are an extraordinary Commander, Clarke."

"I'm not in charge of anyone." Clarke quickly corrected as she pulled her knees to her chest with one hand and tucked her chin.

"Abby may be chancellor, but you are their commander. Neither she nor Marcus could have done what you have." The commander turned to look at Clarke rather than the fire now. "You are the reason your people live."

"I'm also the reason hundreds of people are dead." The blonde added curtly.

Lexa sat quietly for a moment before responding with something she knew Clarke was tired of her repeating, "That is the cost of war."

"It wouldn't have been, if you didn't stab me in the back." Her voice raised slightly in anger and one hand slammed into the ground below in frustration.

"It would have been the same with or without my people."

"Then why the hell are you following me?" She asked. Demand filling the air as the question spilled over her lips.

Lexa tilted her head backwards tenuously, the warm glow of the fire illuminating the contemplation on her face as she searched for the proper way to answer. Finally, she decided on blunt honesty. "I'm here to train you."

"I'm not going to be your second." Clarke spat bitterly. Not at all pleased with the commander's reasoning.

"Commanders do not take seconds." The commander quickly corrected. She then paused, noticing a hint of confusion behind the anger on Clarke's face. "Your people are a threat now. They have done what none of the twelve clans could. They killed hundreds of my people." She paused again as the expression on Clarke's face wavered in reflection of the death Lexa spoke of. "They will also die if they do not learn to fight."

"So teach them. Not me." Clarke huffed angrily, swiping her hand fiercely as she turned away from the commander and re-wrapped it around her legs. Dirt swept up and onto the commander, whose eyes lingered on the loose earth for a few moments before looking up to Clarke who had very clearly forced her focus onto the fire.

"You are the Sky Commander. Your strengths, and your weaknesses are theirs. My people can make you strong." The commander waited for Clarke to respond, being met instead with the now familiar silent treatment.

The commander then rose to her feet, "You are not the only one dealing with pain and regret, Clarke. Don't let your anger be your death." With her final advice given, Lexa turned and disappeared back into the darkness. Ten, eleven, twelve paces; back to the small niche in the forest she had relaxed into earlier in the night, the night was silent again. Just the sound of crackling flames, and Clarke's own thoughts until morning light filtered through the frost nipped leaves of the forest.

Somewhere between here and then, Clarke had finally drifted to sleep under the leafy shelter of the forest. Now the sunlight poured into the leaves, slowly lifting Clarke from the coverage of nightfall and into a warm and welcoming vibrant emerald.

She shivered more consciously now, stuffing her trembling hands within her jacket and around her sides only to remind herself of the scuffle she had managed to get herself into the night before. She quickly pulled her fingers off the sting in her side before slowly relocating her arm to a different location. She was certain her skin had swelled into a deep purple under her jacket by now, but the morning air was too crisp to convince her to lift her shirt and inspect the damage.

She had shuffled in and out of sleep, and the lack of recovery her body had gotten overnight was taking it's toll on her now very tense muscles. Using her elbow Clarke brought herself to an upright position, and yawned ferociously. Her hair was wild, messy, and one side was pressed with dirt and loose plant life. Her squinted eyes and bleary vision gazed upon the morning skies, blurring leaves with clouds and the yellow of the sun into a beautiful messy arrangement she wish she had the art supplies to recreate.

Her neck screamed in pain as she tried to roll out the kinks from sleeping on the ground. Her back tensed and creaked as she stretched, her joints popped, and muscles stretched to their limits. She was not unfamiliar to sleeping on hard surfaces, but she had forgotten just how hard on her body it was.

Reaching for her gun, Clarke released the clip and counted her rounds like she had every morning. "Three rounds," she noted aloud; running her fingers over each bullet in the clip as she double, triple, even quadruple counted them. Hoping desperately that she had somehow miscounted.

A sigh pushed past her lips and Clarke reloaded the clip back into her gun. She needed food, but her ammunition was limited. She also wanted to avoid firing a gun so close to both Camp Jaha and Tondc. That meant that foraging, or even fishing, were her options for the day.

A small breeze picked up, sifting through her hair and towards the eastern sun and it gave Clarke the boost she needed to start her day, only for her to freeze in realization that she was alone.

Alone, she stomped out the last of the embers from her fire. Alone, she stomped off deeper into the thickets of the forest to a river of water she had been following so as to have a place to drink from nearby. The soft flowing of water as it trickled around stones and over fallen branches was the only accompaniment she was given, and left her with no other place to cast her anger.

For the first few hours of the morning, Clarke was happy to finally be rid of the grounder shadow. The entire purpose of her venturing off on her own was so that she could be alone. She wanted to grieve in piece, and learn if her survival instincts were stronger than the feelings of crippling turmoil she was now forced to learn to live with. She wanted to learn to live with it at her own pace rather than being forced to live a facade in front of the other delinquents, and having the commander around only intensified her frustrations, and ruined her solitary grieving.

She scavenged the area for food sources, finding only an assortment of nuts and berries. As she hunched down to pluck a few from the bushes they grew on, a familiar voice chimed "Those are poisonous, Clarke."

Twirling her head around, Clarke was met with nothingness. The berries spilling between her loose fingers and onto the ground as Clarke stared into the forest. The river behind her whispering echos of a ghost. She was alone.

Shaking her head to rid herself of these thoughts, Clarke then reached around and grabbed her gun. She needed to eat more than just nuts and berries. After a week of minimal nourishment, she was beginning to worry about the effects it would have on her – on her sanity.

Continuing to follow the direction of the river's flow, Clarke slowly branched away, keeping within ear shot of the flowing water. She searched slowly and intricately in what felt like and endless quest for food. She had done it plenty of times in the past while residing in the drop ship; though not as much as some of the other delinquents. That aside, the area she was in now was unfamiliar to her, and she had minimal tracking skills, if any. When coming across seeds or other edibles she could collect and know were safe, she would collect and store them, snacking only occasionally to stretch the supplies to their limits as her eyes scoured the forest for any signs of animal life.

Eventually, exhaustion wore in and Clarke decided to take a beak and return to the river bank for a break. She wandered towards the water, listening to the forest to guide her. It took some time, and when Clarke finally reached her destination she rushed to the water's edge and let the water pool into her hands before filling the emptiness in her stomach with as much water as she could manage to suck down.

The blonde spacer breathed a heavy sigh, pulling herself back from the water and crossed her legs to rest. She could see fish in the water, a small school swimming around in the safety of some tree roots that stretched over the bank and into the river. She looked at her gun, knowing her aim to be poor enough – and a gun loud enough – that it would be a waste for her to attempt to shoot a fish. She had no experience spearing fish and no wire to make a fishing rod, nor the fabric to create a net. Making the fish a teasing temptation for her famished and exhausted body.

She watched the fish for hours thinking that if she stayed still something larger – a two headed deer maybe – would eventually come for water and giver her an opportunity to give her remaining bullets a real use. The sun was high in the sky, and the temperature had warmed considerably, but Clarke hadn't noticed. Her eyes still on the few fish peeking out from the shadows of the tree roots.

Frustration kicked in and Clarke kicked at the river with a loud groan. Water splattered, soaking her pants and seeped into her boots. She grasp at her hair around her temples; her dirty fingers pushing back the greasy pieces of hair she so desperately needed to wash. She was cursing at the river, anger swelling in bursts as she threw what few berries that remained in her hands into the water. And before she could even realize what was happening Clarke had risen to her feet and fallen into a hard sprint back towards the campfire she had made the night before.

Branches whipped at her face, her arms, her legs, and most frequently the bruise in her side as she pushed through the forest. Her legs never slowing despite the pain until she came back to the small clearing, where her legs froze instantly.

Kneeling over a small fire was a male grounder. Like Lexa, he had black war paint over his eyes. One thick black line crossing diagonally over the left eye and ending in the middle of his chin, and another coming in from the center of his face towards the other resulting in a backwards Y shape. His dark hair hair shaven on the sides, with braids of hair wrapped around the base of the crop of hair that was slicked back and tied into a small top knot. Clarke noted that she had never seen him before. He was hunched over four sticks of meat, cooking what she could only guess was squirrel. But all this aside, her legs stopped because of the one behind the unfamiliar grounder using the remains of her camp: Commander Lexa.

Lexa – now adorned with full armor and painted face – was leaned against a tree with her arms folded over her chest, watching the other male grounder and speaking indistinct babble Clarke could only assume was the language of their people. A small smile pulled at the corners of her lips, and Clarke realized she had never seen the commander smile before.

However, before Clarke could finish taking in the soft warmth of Lexa's smile, the commander's gaze shifted up to Clarke. She said nothing, her expression blank, and the Grounder between them keeping his attention to the fire. Finally, the commander called her name. Suddenly the world stopped pulsing around her, and she realized what it was she had been running from. She realized what the Commander was doing by going out of her way to stay at Clarke's side, even when she responded with vicious hatred.

"I don't want to be alone."

The commander nodded slowly and then rose to her feet. She closed some of the distance, placing a hand on the grounder's shoulder. The male responded and looked up to his commander but said nothing and Clarke couldn't help but scrunch her eyes as she watched how intensely the grounder looked upon the Commander's face. She gave the grounder a command, words Clarke had never heard before in the grounder language. The grounder nodded and grabbed one of the sticks of meat, extending it outwards and towards Clarke saying, "Kom Heda."

Heda. That was a word she recognized. While she didn't know the direct translation, it was what they called the Commander. This grounder spoke quietly and hoarsely with intense eyes that never wavered. Clarke bit her cheeks, and hesitantly stepped forward to accept the offering. The smell of burnt animal flesh called at her to her core and Clarke immediately begun devouring pieces of the warm, flame charred flesh. She was so absorbed in filling her body with an appropriate amount of calories and nutrition that she didn't even notice both grounders watching her like an exhibit. Both with furrowed brows, and heads tilted slightly as they watched.

Sucking the last of the meat from the stick, Lexa swiped another from its perch over the fire and handed it to Clarke before taking one for herself and leaving the last for the other grounder. She returned to her previous position, sitting withing the range of warmth of the fire, but far enough back to clearly show that the other Grounder had been placed in charge of maintaining it. Ingesting this one much more slowly than the last, the two grounder's lost their interest in Clarke and begun to pick at their own food.

Once everyone had finished, Lexa looked up at Clarke, her green eyes glowing from the dark contrast painted around her face. "Tomorrow we begin your training, Sky Commander."

The spacer still felt strange being called Sky Commander, letting herself work with the grounders, allowing Lexa the knowledge that Clarke would rather be with someone she hated than go at it alone, giving her the slightest hint of an idea that she would ever forgive her.

She won't.

She can't.

But for now, in order to survive the unraveling in her mind and the threats of the forest alike, she needed to learn from the grounders. She needed Lexa.


End file.
